Yesterday morning Canada Newswire (CNW) hosted a seminar featuring Michael Pranikoff (@mpranikoff), Global Director of Emerging Media at PR Newswire (CNW’s parent company). It was an inspiring seminar about ways to engage audiences.
Here are my notes:
Summary
There were many content strategy nuggets offered; these three resonated most with me:
- “Advertisers story YELL, instead of story tell”
- “In Google we trust” – 65% of buyer research is done before engaging directly with a vendor
- 72 – 96 hours that’s how long content conversations last after release.
Here’s a close look at each.
Advertisers story YELL instead of tell
With the rise of search engines, mobility and social; earned, owned and paid media are converging. However, advertisers (content publishers) deliver messages designed for one of owned, earned or paid media – each has its own silo. By operating in “content silos” the content sometimes gets out of context with the consumption technology – search, mobile and social media, so the audiences perceive the messages as “story YELLING”.
Time of day matters
There are multiple devices on which content is consumed and audiences have a tendency to use different devices at different times in the day. For example:
Mobile in the morning – during the morning content is mostly consumed on a mobile device. “Mobile context” means:
- Keep it short – three swipes max / single scroll
- Bullet points
- No block paragraphs
Mid day is laptop / desktop consumption time – Context of the larger screen means:
- Longer “heavier” content
- Attachments
- Video – best time for video is 1 – 3 pm.
Evening on the tablet – context means
- Video use soars
- Audiences are multi tasking – looking at tablets while listening / watching TV.
To make story telling an easier process across the three media “silos”, Pranikoff suggests these ways to engage audiences with an agile approach to content development:
- Identify and target the intended audience
- Engage and interact with the audience
- Promote and syndicate content
- Listen and analyze (use your analytics) the audience’s feedback
“In Google we trust”
Most buyers self educate on line. In fact 65% of their research is complete before engaging with a vendor. This demonstrates the trust people have that “Google knows where they should go to answer their questions.
In response content producers need to provide a “trail” indicating where we want them to go – a link to another website or purchase page, join an email list, donate, etc.
Content conversations last 72 – 96 hours after release
Following that initial 72 – 96 hours, CNW’s research shows that content enter a “long tail” period that lasts about four additional months.
However, those deploying multimedia content strategies by adding short bits of related content can extent the engagement period an additional 12 to 18 months.
Context is as important as the Content
CNW deploys the method talked about at the seminar – publishing their content in context with multiple device types, or different places online. They improved audience engagement 35%.
Thank you CNW for sponsoring this informative seminar.
Get all the seminar tweets: #cnwcontent
